Santa's New Sleigh

The new-car salesman chokes on his coffee. An elderly gentleman in a red suit and hat with white fur trim enters the showroom. The salesman moves to greet his customer while dabbing his stained Christmas tie. “My, my. You shocked me for a minute. If you weren’t so fit and trim, I would swear you are the real Santa.” He lays it on thick like any good car salesperson.

The old man snuffs out his pipe and tucks it in his shirt pocket. “Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas. As a matter of fact, I am Santa. I’ve lost weight thanks to Ozempic, a miracle drug. The Missus has convinced me to move into the 21st century. And that is why I’m here. I want to go carbon neutral.”

“Carbon neutral?”

“Yes. Reindeer emit a lot of greenhouse gasses, you know. Or perhaps you don’t. But if you rode in my sleigh for one night, you would certainly agree. Besides, since the pandemic, I’ve had trouble getting enough of them and they want more and better feed, shorter hours, more benefits. They have a long list, so to speak. Thus, I’ve decided to go electric. I hear it’s all the rage now.”

“Electric? You mean electric reindeer?”

Santa waves a hand. “Ho, ho, ho. No, silly. They don’t make electric reindeer. I mean an electric sleigh. I want to go all electric for Christmas Eve.”

“Fine, but we don’t sell sleighs. We sell cars and trucks. They don’t fly.”

“Not to worry. I’ll have my elves make a few modifications. What do you have that can hold lots of presents? Maybe a van. Yeah, a conversion van.”

“We don’t have any electric vans. Amazon has purchased all of them. We just have electric sedans, sports cars. . .oh, and pickups.”

“Pickup. That’ll do. My sleigh has an open bed, so that’ll work nicely. Can I get a panoramic sun roof? I like to feel the wind in my hair and beard.”

“Sorry, but we don’t have any pickups with a sunroof.”

“Oh, well, I’ll add that to the list of modifications for my elves.”

The salesman checks his inventory. “I assume you want red. We have two models on the lot, the base with a 250-mile range and the premium with a 350-mile range. Of course, the range falls off the colder the weather.”

“Range? Is that how long the truck will last? Do you know how many miles I go in a night and how cold it can get?”

“No. Range is how far the truck can go on a battery charge.”

“Oh, ho, ho, ho. I carry a lot of batteries for all the toys so I can just replace them.”

“It doesn’t work that way. You don’t replace the batteries. That would cost you half the price of the truck. Who’d do a stupid thing like that? No. You just have to hook it up to a charger. You can have one installed in your garage for $600.”

“So, I have to return to the North Pole to recharge it?”

“Oh, no. They have charging stations all around the world. . .well, at least in some countries, not all.”

“How do I find them?”

“There’s a phone app for locating a charger. There are over 150,000 in the US, but only about half work at any given time.”

“How long does a recharge take?”

“Twelve hours for a full charge.”

“Twelve hours! You know I only have one night to make all my deliveries, world-wide.”

“A supercharger station can get you to 80% in an hour, but our vehicles aren’t compatible with superchargers and most of those are in China.”

“Okay. What if I buy four trucks and switch to another when one dies? That would work, wouldn’t it? How much would four pickups cost?”

“They start at $100,000 each, so that would be $400,000 plus the rechargers and any upgrades you might want.”

“$400,000! Wow! That’s a lot of sugar plums. The Missus tells me there is some kind of government tax credit for buying electric vehicles. How much is that?”

“Oh, sure. It was a part of the Inflation Reduction Act.”

“Inflation Reduction Act? What does buying an electric vehicle have to do with reducing inflation? At that price it seems to increase inflation. How much is it?”

“Up to $7,500. But our vehicles don’t qualify because they don’t have enough domestic content. Too many parts and minerals from China.”

“Goodness, gracious. I guess I’ll have to give into the reindeers’ demands after all. Thank you for your time, sir. And Merry Christmas.”

“Sure thing.” He shakes Santa’s hand. “Ho, ho, ho. But you will need to go electric, eventually. The government is mandating all electric by 2030.”

Santa shook his head. “I guess the Grinch is stealing Christmas after all.”